Can any modern movie live up to the standards of intentional bad taste set by BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS? S.O.A.P. was that hardest-of-all-things-to-pull-off, A Deliberately Bad Movie that still managed to be wildly entertaining. We thought it should have slither into being the biggest hit of the year...What s-s-s-s-say you??

Considering the crap Hollywood's been producing for the last few years, I'm inclined to believe SOAP went into production with plans for it to be sold as a "serious disaster drama" -- And only when they started getting Internet attention did New Line realize the upside of marketing it as a comedy...

Gotta give Samuel L. Jackson credit, though. Sounds like he knew from the minute he read the title on the screenplay's cover: I hear he argued with New Line when they wanted to change the title to something more generic, like FLIGHT 217. Good for him!

Ever see the musical, the producers? I think this is exactly what they are doing. They are banking on making a flop that only makes enough to cover costs for the studios and gives them a little extra cash left over for private expenses. Unfortunately, like springtime for hitler I think this one is definately gonna be a hit if only for the people seeing it to see exactly just how bad it is.

Nobody has mentioned the hilarious sketch on Saturday Night Live about this very subject. Will Farrell, Molly Shannon, Tim Meadows, et al, encounter, guess what, snakes on an airplane. After the snakes take over, the plane crashes, but in the rubble, one of the snakes survives, and talks directly to us. F-U-N-N-Y. I think this movie will slither its way into the hearts and underarms of America quite nicely. If it's half as funny as that sketch, it will be worth watching.

I see a potential problem with the poster. Some people have a phobia of snakes. They can't see even a picture of a snake without completely freaking out. This is the first movie I know of that will negatively impact other movies.

When I heard of this movie I remembered a MOW I saw way back in the 70s. Ya I am that old.. "F" you! ;) ....anyhow, it was called "Fer De Lance". It was about Snakes on a Submarine. David Janssen, Hope Lange, Ivan Dixon (Hogans Heros), directed by Russ Mayberry. (1974)

So the "Snakes on a ___________" has already been done, and they simply dug up the MOW and moved the location to an airplane... and voila! You have S.O.A.P. !

It's not even an original idea.

Note from HeadRAZZberry: Here's the LINK to read the IMDb's Plot Summary for Fer de Lance...Sure sounds like S.O.A.P. was "inspired" by this old TV movie...

Fer De Lance was written by Leslie Stevens, the genius that gave us
Bolero, A Change of Seasons, The Incredible "Return to the Blue Lagoon"
and the immortal Cannon classic 'Three Kinds of Heat", all well deserved
Razzie contenders

OOPS, forgive me Head Razz--I forgot "Sheena" and I beg your pardon

Sadly, it was a long way downhill from his original movie work, "Private
Property", his clean up of Gore VIdal's controversial "The Left Handed
Gun" and the bizarre all-Esperanto "Incubus" to his TV work which
included Stoney Burke, Probe and the original (and best) OUTER LIMITS...

And, he formed Daystar, the first "Free-Independent" production
company, which broke the back of the "Studio System" and led to making
agencies like ICM and CAA the powerhouses they are today.

and... ANY original Outer Limits episode is far better than the current
crap on TV today

Here's an IMDb LINK to check out credits for Leslie Stevens. And here's the IMDb LINKto see his RAZZIE Nominations.

Joe -- You left out SHEENA (which is listed among the 100 Funniest Bad Movies Ever Made in THE OFFICIAL RAZZIE MOVIE GUIDE) for which Stevens received one of his well-deserved Worst Screenplay RAZZIE Nods...

I just looked up FER DE LANCE in my crumbling copy of LEONARD MALTIN'S 1985-86 TV MOVIES (the old equivalent of the annual Maltin Guide). In those days, before VHS and DVD, Maltin also rated movies made for TV. They gave LANCE a rating of "Below Average" and summarized it thusly: "Suspense tale about a submarine wedged below the sea, terrorized from within by deadly snakes. Ridiculous story and characters, with creepy-crawlers, for those who like that kind of thing."

And I looked up the title in my 1993 edition of TELEVISION PROGRAMMING SOURCE BOOK: FILMS (an industry reference book for TV station programmers). It says that before it went into synication, FER DE LANCE aired on network TV twice, drawing about 14 million viewers the first time, and 9 million the second.

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